- Civil organization Korea Tourism Club: “Gave effort to increase the comfort of tourists.” Winner of Korea Tourism Grand Award with Pohang City.
Korea Tourism Club selected Yeosu as the winner of The 2nd Korea Tourism Grand Award. This award is given to the local self-government that has contributed significantly to Korean tourism. Yeosu and Pohang were selected as the best local self-governments and were awarded at the award ceremony at Seoul Palace Hotel on January 15.

Korea Tourism Club, established in 2006, is a pure civil organization comprising approximately 100 members including representatives of 80 of the 100 largest travel agencies in Korea and tourism journalists.
Yeosu has been developing a tourism infrastructure and tourism products in preparation for the success of Expo 2012 Yeosu. As a result, among the 51 local self-governments that applied for the 6 categories set by Korea Tourism Club (tourism facility category, tourism marketing category, tourism incentive operation and more) Yeosu won the grand award.
Yeosu, the host city of 2012 Expo, has been expanding convenience facilities for tourists while conducting PR and marketing to attract local and foreign tourists. Its aim is to establish an international marine tourist/leisure city.

Yeosu entered the “Club of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World,” which includes 31 bays from 24 nations, and publicized to the world the beautiful island and ria coast of Yeosu. It raised its image as a tourist city and received a favorable review.
Furthermore, Yeosu has been specially planning a story-telling project for a new turning point in the tourism industry. Yeosu excavated 47 hidden stories of Admiral Yi Soon-shin and hosted the 2009 Story Telling Festival in which tourism and cultural heritage met. It made the foreign and the local societies know that Yeosu is the city of Yi Soon-shin and the Turtle Ship.
Yeosu included story telling in the defense culture festival Turtle Ship Festival and was greeted warmly by the visitors for the interesting story-format program.

In the tourism-marketing sector, Yeosu fully committed itself to the strategies for hosting tourists. It participated in various travel exhibitions and publicized Yeosu tourism; operated a PR booth in national sports festivals; held Familiarization Tours for major travel agencies, KORAIL product planning team, Shanghai seniors association, school principals, travel writers and journalists for large companies; and promoted MOU betweeen travel agencies and related organizations. As a result of all its efforts, Yeosu became the honorable recipient of Korea Tourism Grand Award.